Summer in Eclipse Bay by Jayne Ann Krentz Page A

strange feeling that she could not depart until she had accomplished
whatever it was that she had come here to do had descended on her again.
    Was her imagination going into high gear? Or was she already coming up with
excuses to delay the day she walked away from Eclipse Bay and Nick and Carson
Harte?
    A shiver went through her. This was not good. This was risky rationalization
and she did not do risky stuff. According to Claudia, the tendency to play it
safe and not take chances was a major failing. She could still hear her aunt's
words ringing in her head.
    You know what I want you to do after I'm gone? I want you to go out and
raise a little hell. Live it up. Take some chances. Life is too damned short as
it is. You want to get to my age and have nothing interesting to look back on?
    Okay, so she'd taken a mini-chance last night and what did she have to show
for it? She'd cooked dinner for Nick Harte. Big deal. She'd kicked him out of
the cottage before she'd even discovered whether or not he was sufficiently
interested in having mad, passionate sex with her to bother to give her The
Talk.
    Playing it safe.
    She had set out to walk off the restlessness after getting home from the
gallery, but the exercise wasn't working as therapy. It was tempting to blame
her mood on the advancing storm, but she knew there were other factors at work.
One of them was the memory of the tension she had witnessed between Nick and
Jeremy earlier that day.
    Why was she allowing the thinly veiled hostility that had shimmered between
those two get to her? It wasn't her problem if they had issues. She had her own
issues. She had a business to sell. That sort of enterprise required planning
and care. And then there was the move away from Eclipse Bay to engineer. For
starters, she had to make arrangements to ship all of the stuff she had brought
here. What on earth had made her bring so many of her personal treasures to the
cottage? She should have left them at her apartment in Portland.
    But the apartment in the city had always had a temporary feel. She had not
been tempted to try to settle in there. It was her cottage here in Eclipse Bay
that she had tried to turn into a home.
    Lots of issues.'
    Nick Harte.
    Yes, indeed. Nick Harte was a big issue.
    What was it about him that drew her? He was not her type. She had more in
common with Jeremy Seaton, when you got right down to it.
    This was getting her nowhere. Brooding was a waste of time and energy and it
never, in her experience, resulted in good outcomes. The negative feelings
simply fed on themselves and got heavier and more bleak.
    It was time to get a grip. Take charge. Act responsibly.
    She turned and started determinedly back along the beach.
    She had almost reached the bottom of the cliff path when the overwhelming,
primordial knowledge that she was not alone jangled her senses.
    She looked up quickly and caught her breath when she saw Nick standing at
the top of the bluff. The ominous early twilight generated by the oncoming
storm etched him in mystery. His dark hair was ruffled by the growling wind.
His black windbreaker was open, revealing the black pullover and jeans he wore
underneath. Top bad there wasn't a photographer around, she thought. This shot
would have been perfect for the back cover photo on one of his books.
    For a timeless moment it was as if she'd been frozen by some powerful force,
unable to move, barely able to breathe. But an acute awareness arced through
her, raising the small hairs on the back of her arms. She ought to be getting
used to the sensation, she thought. Nick Harte had this effect on her a lot.
    With an effort, she forced herself to move through the oddly charged
atmosphere and started up the cliff path. She climbed carefully, conscious of
how the wind was whipping her long, white skirt around her legs.
    "Looks like the weather people missed the call on this storm,"
Nick said when she reached the top. He glanced toward the looming chaos that
threatened on